Friday, February 5, 2016

The Lock In

***DISCLAIMER***
The following review is entirely my opinion. If you comment (which I
encourage you to do) be respectful. If you don't agree with my opinion
(or other commenters), that's fine. To each their own. These reviews
are not meant to be statements of facts or endorsements, I am just
sharing my opinions and my perspective when watching the film and is
not meant to reflect how these films should be viewed. Finally, the
reviews are given on a scale of 0-5. 0, of course, being
unwatchable. 1, being terrible. 2, being not great. 3, being okay.
4, being great and 5, being epic! And if you enjoy these reviews
feel free to share them and follow the blog or follow me on
Twitter (@RevRonster) for links to my reviews and the occasional
live-Tweet session of the movie I'm watching! Oh Christian films, you're my favorite type of comedy!

The Lock In – 0 out of 5

About four years or so ago I somehow stumbled upon an
article that spoke about a church group that was in the process of making a
“found footage” horror film that centers around a Christian youth group during
a lock in—a social gathering where those involved are locked in a church and
probably do really boring things but nothing more prevalent than trying to
convince themselves they are having fun.The kicker, however, is the fact the film centered on a
haunted porno magazine.Yes, you heard
that right.After learning this, I knew I
had to see The Lock In and I spent the next few years keeping up-to-date on the
film through their website but, not too long ago, I forgot about it.It wasn’t until my buddy Chris over at The Robot’s Pajamas told me that it came out in 2014 that I flipped my shit.I was pissed at myself for not realizing it
came out but, more so, I was damn excited to get my hands on a copy and then
have a Live Tweet event to it where I make jokes about the film—which,
amazingly, had one tweet “favorited” and re-tweeted by a few followers of
Christ…one of whom I am almost certain was a pastor.

Sometimes you should really read the tweet you are retweeting.By the way, follow me on Twitter!

Meet the only decent actor in the entire film. This dudedelivers a line about how he believes there's a connectionbetween pornography and demon activity and he said itlike it made sense. It's the best acting in the entire film.

On their way to a church lock in, three friends; Nick, Blake
and Justin, find a pornographic magazine in a dumpster (*GASP*).Blake—the goofy one because he’s constantly
mugging at the camera—decides that it would be “hilarious” if they put the skin
mag in Nick’s bag and he accidentally smuggles it into lock in.In fairness, his judgment can easily be called
into question over whether or not something is a “hysterical prank” because he
also calls the lock in “crazy fun” and thinks having Justin film all the events
is going to be “awesome.”Blake believes
a story about a talking snake so we can forgive his terrible sense of
humor.Any-hoo, the pastor finds the
porn and decides the group needs to do what Jesus would and that is pray about
it and burn that sinful magazine all the way to hell.However, the kids soon learn that this isn’t
your average naughty mag as it suddenly shows itself up again and it’s revealed
that it is inhabited by a demon!Now the
demon is out to get the boys and torture is just beginning…

Part of the torture is watching this guy constantly mug at the camera.He's the "funny" one.

As they burned the porn, Iron Maiden's "The Numberof the Beast" could be heard.

You’ll have to forgive me because I was being a little
deceptive with my synopsis about the film.Mainly in the fact that I describe what the demon is doing to the kids
as torture.The only torture that
happens is the actual process of watching the film because The Lock In is
bad—really bad. Like so bad that this is probably almost definitely going to be a very harsh review.It’s so bad on such an epic level that I don’t
even know where to begin when describing that actual badness.I could start with the predictably bad acting
and talk about how hard it is to watch the kids struggle.For example, the kids are supposed to cry
when they can’t take any more of the demon’s activity but none of them can
actually get tears to come out and I don’t think the production could afford a
bottle of Visine to squeeze into their eyes.Instead, they just sniffle but, even then, they can’t hide the fact that
they are constantly fighting the “giggles” and have to deliver serious lines
(if there was even a script to read lines from to begin with) with an
out-of-place smile on their face.

And, of course, they had to do the "video apology to the parents" part.I guess since it worked for The Blair Witch Project.

Then you have the oddities of the fact that the film has no
credits—maybe in an effort to make it “real”—and then there's the fact that a non-Christian
atheist like myself just can’t sympathize with the very strange behavior of
these kids.For example, the character
of Nick has a crush that is going to be at the lock in and Nick’s parents are
freaking the fuck out over the reality of him probably kissing the girl—not
having sex or even getting to second base.No, they are scared to death over their son kissing someone.Then we see them go into berserk mode when
they learn he had…wait for it…pizza with the girl!!!What a bunch of whores!Then, the mother literally asks the question
of whether or not the pizza was to-go.Maybe it’s because I was raised in a very loosely religious home and had
parents that were protective but not overly so that all this stuff feels silly
and really fake to me.I mean, honestly,
do super religious people really act like this? Is it an affront to Christ to have pizza while dining in?
If they do, it wouldn’t surprise me if they actually believed in porno
demons.

"Next you're going to tell us that you've actually looked this girl in the eye andthink that's she's somehow equal to men!"

It wasn’t really shocking that the film isn’t scary because,
at its heart, this film is a lot less of a horror film and a lot more of a
Christian propaganda film that is meant to tell you how totes awesome Jesus
is.Being made by a Christian group, the
production just didn’t have the balls to make something that can speak to one
of our most primitive emotions.Hell,
this film is so scared to push the boundaries that they won’t even let the
kids—when they are away from the overprotective eyes of adults and being chased
by a porno demon—let out a single fear-induced swear.The closest they come is to say “freaking.”Without a desire to really create anything
scary, it feels like the production decides to work around this by obscuring
literally any and all action that is seen from the porn demon.It made for terror sequences that were
confusing, too muddled to watch and, as if fitting with the overall thesis of
the film, something extremely boring to sit through.

This is the closest you'll get to something that kinda/sorta resembles scary...and it makes no sense. It's a porno demon. Why is it taking the form of a spooky kid?

The worst part of the film is the fact it is trying really
hard to be deep and insert some serious commentary about pornography.During a sequence that can only be described
as the sloppiest execution of blatant explanation of themes and morals, the
kids talk about the inherent sexism to the world of porn and how cases of porn
addiction can harm a variety of relationships, both personal and intimate.This isn’t necessarily a bad thing in theory because
it does raise great discussion points about porn but the clumsily and very
obvious insertion of these talking points really undercuts the magnitude of it
all.And, then, of course, you have the
whole porno demon thing.Hell, this film
so sloppily projects its themes within awkward dialogue that I felt a need to
invest in MORE porn just out of spit for the filmmakers.

Thrill as The Lock In abandons subtlety and flat-out explains the underlying themesthrough bad acting and awkwardly unrealistic dialogue!

All in all, The Lock In is a horrendous movie that was
slapped together by a production that can’t even be called amateurs—hell, they
didn’t even edit out the scene when a crew member accidentally walked into
shot.

Assistant: Um, Johnny walked into shot while trying to find the hymns for the weekend.Should we do another take or edit it out?Director: Um...nah.

However, despite all the bad things that exist in this film—and there’s a lot
of bad—things like characters who aren’t developed at all, action sequences
from the demon that are obscured completely and just come off as nonsensical
gibberish, really unconvincing and hammy acting and not a single scare in
sight, the film still has one overwhelming redeeming factor.The one thing that makes this film something
magical and definitely something to watch is how hysterical the whole product
is.With all its huge gaping flaws and clearly inept crew, The
Lock In is that perfect example of that “So Bad It’s Good” magic.This film, with all the riff potential that
is in literally every second of the running time, is right up there with films
like Double Down, Troll 2, The Room and Birdemic.This is a film that is perfect for getting a
bunch of friends, a shit load of pizza, booze and junk food and just laugh the
night away.

This is the only credits the film gives you. Notice it's owned by Holy Moly Pictures.That's so sad I can't even muster the energy to make a joke about it.

Follow by Email

Subscribe To

Translate

Find a film...

About Me

I'm a geek, an atheist (who is also an ordained reverend), a peanut butter and jelly enthusiast, a man who shares the same name with a popular character from "Parks & Rec" and feels he can't live up to the awesomeness of the fictional character, was proudly banned from Reddit, an occasional Shakespearean performer, and a stand up comic.
Have any questions, recommendations or wanna share any theories on various movies? Email me at RevRonMovies@gmail.com and I'll talk about them on my new Q&A segment!